SAN PEDRO, Calif. (CNS) - Sheriff's detectives are asking for the public's help in identifying two suspects in the beating of a 15-year-old San Pedro High School baseball player.
Evan Jimenez remained hospitalized in serious condition, facing a long road to recovery after he was beaten and left for dead in north San Pedro by two assailants believed to be gang members, authorities said.
The junior varsity baseball player was walking home from a friend's house when he was viciously attacked about 11:50 p.m. Thursday in an alley in the 900 block of First Street, near Bandini Street, a neighborhood known as La Rambla, according to Sgt. Tina McCoy of the sheriff's Lomita station.
Jimenez was beaten with bottles and choked, according to authorities. He was taken to County Harbor UCLA Medical Center where he was put into the intensive care unit.
"The victim sustained serious injuries after he was assaulted by two unknown males, leaving him unconscious," Lomita sheriff's Sgt. Eric Ford told The Daily Breeze. "Minutes after the assault, a vehicle pulled into the alley and took (Jimenez) to the hospital."
The driver dropped Jimenez off at the hospital but didn't leave his name, Ford told the newspaper.
McCoy told City News Service no description of the suspects is available.
"They approached him and asked him where he was from," Jimenez's aunt Debra Alvarado told KABC7 in Los Angeles. "He said that he wasn't from anywhere." One suspect pushed her nephew so that he fell but he got back up and the suspect grabbed a bottle from the floor and hit him in the face with it, she said.
"He's a great kid with an infectious personality," San Pedro head baseball coach Steve Tedesco told the Daily Breeze. "We liked his baseball talent and his character. He works extremely hard at the game and in the classroom. We're all praying for him."
Tedesco also told the newspaper that Jimenez didn't appear to have brain damage but faces a "long road to recovery."
Friends and family set up a GoFundMe account to help the family pay their medical bills. More than $47,600 of a target of $100,000 has been donated since the page went up Saturday. The account is at www.gofundme.com/evans-medical-expensesrecover-fund.
The GoFundMe page includes photos of Jimenez before and after the attack.
Anyone with information on this beating or the suspects was asked to call the sheriff's Lomita station at (310) 539-1661. Tipsters can also call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS. All tips can be made anonymously.
